I remember this exact type of speculation when 'mists of pandaria' was trade marked, everyone said oh its gonna be a mini game or app. Due to the same responses i'm inclined to believe this is the expansion.

...I'm onto you undercover blizzard employees trying to get off us the scent of the new expansion!

Yes, that's all well and good. There's likely some sort of tie between N'zoth and the Emerald Dream. I'm not arguing against that. What I AM saying, however, is that there is no connection between the name 'Heroes of the Storm' and the Emerald Dream, and using the name 'Stormrage' as the link is incredibly weak and flimsy reasoning.

Stormrage deafeted the lord of the nightmare Xavius with the help of a few friends. But also stated the nightmare still exists at the bottom of the maelstrom, and Xavius was a pawn for something much more evil (N'Zoth)

I agree Stormrage and heroes of the storm has no basis for insight.

But Stormrage (the character) does have a connection and ties to the dream, nightmare, n'zoth, the maelstrom, azshara etc.

If Heroes of the Storm is the new WoW expansion, I'm betting "Storm" is somehow related to the Twisting Nether (which could be described as a stormy place) and "Heroes" is refering to Turalyon and Alleria (as well as the players I guess).

- Turalyon and Alleria disappeared from a torn Draenor plagued by the Burning Legion. Most likely somewhere into the Twisting Nether.
- The Burning Legion comes from the Twisting Nether.
- The whole Wrathion questchain is building up to a confrontation with the Legion. He also refers to Azeroth being fragile, "Like a candle in a tempest" (tempest = storm). If I'm not misstaken he also makes other storm-references during the questchain.
- There's a loading screen tip of the day saying something like "Noone has seen Turalyon or Alleria Windrunner for years". Not sure when it was added, but I'm pretty sure it was in MoP (correct me if I'm wrong). Seems a bit too random to not have any deeper meaning.
- This would also give Blizzard a good reason to revamp/expand Outland like they did with Azeroth in Cata. Since Outland right now feels pretty dated in many ways. And they can't just keep adding new hidden continents on Azeroth. Maybe this will even mean Wrathion gets to "spend some time" with his big brother (Sabellian). Which given Wrathions history of dealing with family, may be somewhat unpleasant for his older brother.

"At BlizzCon 2010, a question was asked in the Lore panel about the status of Turalyon. Chris Metzen and Alex Afrasiabi responded they had every intention of dealing with Turalyon in an epic manner, but nothing had been set in stone as of yet." (Wowpedia) - That was three years ago. Pre-MoP, when they most likely had ideas for the 5th expansion already, but on a very sketchy level.

While Titan is still a bit away, I'm pretty sure that it's not more than ~2-3 years away. Which is likely about the time when the 5th WoW expansion would be coming to an end. As Titan is supposedly going to be some kind of next-gen MMO, it seems unlikely in my opinion that Blizzard would be competing with themselves running two MMO:s at the same time.

The next expansion will very likely revert to the 10 level jump from BC/WotLK. Based on the BoA-weapons from Garrosh that scale from level 90-100.
This is probably because level 100 seems like the natural conclusion of the WoW game, along with beating "THE BIG BAD" (Sargeras) and his Legion.
With all the whine there's been about just killing "another Old God" or doing "another troll raid", I find it highly unlikely that N'zoth will be the focus of a new expansion.

TLDR:- The "Heroes" in the title is a double meaning, refering both to Turalyon and Alleria and the players.
- The "Storm" also has a double meaning. Refering to the literal storms of the Twisting Nether, as well as the more figurative storm that is about to hit Azeroth - The Return of the Legion.
- The next expansion will be the last of WoW. Giving room for Titan to take over.
- The enemy we'll be facing is Sargeras and the Burning Legion.

My guess: Dark Below IS the actual expansion. It was registered too soon, and blizz pulled it. Now they registered this crap, and at blizzcon they will reintroduce Dark Below.

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This was the feeling of many older players (my 50 year old neighbor). Once he heard pandas, and lived through the hell of dragonsoul, he unsubbed before mop even launched. We were talking the other day, i mentioned how good the raids are now, and explained that pandas were actually in WC3 LONG before kungfu panda came out, and he's thinking about resubbing for next exp.

Dark Below was a hoax, get over it, You realize it makes ZERO sense for them to file it, wait a while, then suddenly think "Oh no, too soon" so remove it? You think they've never done this before? Seriously get over the fact "The Dark Below" is not the next expac name, Or it would've still been in the trademark office.

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Originally Posted by Dragore

Thats what I first thought but aren't they closing that down? Maybe it has something to do with Hearthstone, like a game guide or something.

Well the TCG is made by an external company, maybe they've realised people who play card games like to have actual, physical cards, and so are going to release some more of the real TCG themselves, Speculation ofcouse, But really I've no idea what it could be, It doesn't sound like WoW, But it if is it should make for an interesting X-pac, at least we will find out Soon-ish

Originally Posted by Tony Stark

They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far. I present to you the newest in Stark Industries' Freedom line. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee, the bad guys won't even wanna come out of their caves. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration... the Jericho.

Dark Below was a hoax, get over it, You realize it makes ZERO sense for them to file it, wait a while, then suddenly think "Oh no, too soon" so remove it? You think they've never done this before? Seriously get over the fact "The Dark Below" is not the next expac name, Or it would've still been in the trademark office.

Besides, pulling it when people noticed it would be a bloody stupid idea. You'd be bound to have someone poach the name.

Besides, pulling it when people noticed it would be a bloody stupid idea. You'd be bound to have someone poach the name.

Yeah I just thought of that too, Good point

Originally Posted by Tony Stark

They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far. I present to you the newest in Stark Industries' Freedom line. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee, the bad guys won't even wanna come out of their caves. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration... the Jericho.

Besides, pulling it when people noticed it would be a bloody stupid idea. You'd be bound to have someone poach the name.

They could have submitted an application in secret to any country that is a signatory to the Madrid Protocol but doesn't have a searchable online database to establish priority for the mark.

If The Dark Below does turn out to be the next expansion this is my theory as to why they did what they did:

First off, as I said they would establish priority by submitting an application in a country that is a signatory to the Madrid Protocol but doesn't have an online trademark database.

A large portion of their playerbase, or at least their players that frequent and post in forums and thus establish their word of mouth on the Internet, are under the impression that the next expansion is almost assuredly Burning Legion themed. Blizzard had planned on using Wrathion's talk of the imminent return of the Legion as a misdirect to throw the playerbase off of their trail when in fact the BL are returning an expansion after the next. Unfortunately, this misdirect worked a little too well and Blizzard started to worry that their players would be extremely upset to find out they won't be facing the Burning Legion for another couple years.

So they devised a plan: they would release a controlled leak for TDB in the form of a filled out application form in the US (quickly followed by an application for Corgis Unleashed to establish the idea that The Dark Below could be a hoax) and then an unnecessary trademark filing in the EU which would be removed before publication (publication would prove that it was an actual Blizzard filing) either by purposefully making a mistake or simply withdrawing the application.

They knew players would find the trademark application quickly and start furiously debating its verisimilitude and that The Dark Below would likely be linked to something other than The Burning Legion. This way they could start grooming their playerbase for an expansion that was not demon related and getting their players used to the idea of an Old Gods/Azshara/South Seas/underground/whatever expansion so that the news wouldn't hit as hard. In addition (and to help marketing get on board) this would start a feeding frenzy of hype before Blizzcon (which would also encourage more players to purchase Virtual Tickets) without actually confirming the expansion either way.

They were planning on trademarking Heroes of the Storm anyway, but it fits into their plan rather well. It's my belief that they are either trademarking a rebranding of Blizzard All-Stars or the first booster for Hearthstone which they plan to announce at Blizzcon. Given the timing, and assuming everything goes according to plan, there's just enough time to get HotS published (not registered but published) before Blizzcon.

I also think it's highly likely that certain high profile fan sites and Internet personalities (like Jesse Cox) are in on this but under an NDA. This would be the first expansion in years (ever?) that we were unable to figure out what was coming months in advance.

TL;DR:

Step 1) Secretly apply for TDB trademark in small country without lots of Internets that is a member of the Madrid Union. Step 2) Let players find TDB trademark applications. Step 3) "Trademark" fake name and remove applications to make players doubt that TDB is real. Step 4) Rejoice as players are now starting to talk about expansion themes other than demons. Step 5) Sell more Blizzcon Virtual Tickets and keep more subscribers when players are used to the idea of fighting something unexpected. Step 6) Sip gin.

They could have submitted an application in secret to any country that is a signatory to the Madrid Protocol but doesn't have a searchable online database to establish priority for the mark.

If The Dark Below does turn out to be the next expansion this is my theory as to why they did what they did:

First off, as I said they would establish priority by submitting an application in a country that is a signatory to the Madrid Protocol but doesn't have an online trademark database.

A large portion of their playerbase, or at least their players that frequent and post in forums and thus establish their word of mouth on the Internet, are under the impression that the next expansion is almost assuredly Burning Legion themed. Blizzard had planned on using Wrathion's talk of the imminent return of the Legion as a misdirect to throw the playerbase off of their trail when in fact the BL are returning an expansion after the next. Unfortunately, this misdirect worked a little too well and Blizzard started to worry that their players would be extremely upset to find out they won't be facing the Burning Legion for another couple years.

So they devised a plan: they would release a controlled leak for TDB in the form of a filled out application form in the US (quickly followed by an application for Corgi's Unleashed to establish the idea that The Dark Below could be a hoax) and then an unnecessary trademark filing in the EU which would be removed before publication (publication would prove that it was an actual Blizzard filing) either by purposefully making a mistake or simply withdrawing the application.

They knew players would find the trademark application quickly and start furiously debating its verisimilitude and that The Dark Below would likely be linked to something other than The Burning Legion. This way they could start grooming their playerbase for an expansion that was not demon related and getting their players used to the idea of an Old Gods/Azshara/South Seas/underground/whatever expansion so that the news wouldn't hit as hard. In addition (and to help marketing get on board) this would start a feeding frenzy of hype before Blizzcon (which would also encourage more players to purchase Virtual Tickets) without actually confirming the expansion either way.

They were planning on trademarking Heroes of the Storm anyway, but it fits into their plan rather well. It's my belief that they are either trademarking a rebranding of Blizzard All-Stars or the first booster for Hearthstone which they plan to announce at Blizzcon. Given the timing, and assuming everything goes according to plan, there's just enough time to to get HotS published (not registered but published) just before Blizzcon.

I also think it's highly likely that certain high profile fan sites and Internet personalities (like Jesse Cox) are in on this but under an NDA. This would be the first expansion in years (ever?) that we were unable to figure out what was coming months in advance.

TL;DR:

Step 1) Secretly apply for TDB trademark in small country without lots of Internets that is a member of the Madrid Union. Step 2) Let players find TDB trademark applications. Step 3) "Trademark" fake name and remove applications to make players doubt that TDB is real. Step 4) Rejoice as players are now starting to talk about expansion themes other than demons. Step 5) Sell more Blizzcon Virtual Tickets and keep more subscribers when players are used to the idea of fighting something unexpected. Step 6) Sip gin.

Is this possible?

Yes

Is this likely?

No

But it sure is fun to think about.

Personally I think you're reading waaaaaaaaay to much into it, But for once it's at least nice to see a good theory You've put a good amount of thought into it so as you said, It is possible, Likely no, But thanks anyway for a decent post^^

Originally Posted by Tony Stark

They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far. I present to you the newest in Stark Industries' Freedom line. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee, the bad guys won't even wanna come out of their caves. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration... the Jericho.